We're grumpy
- Posts
- 452
- Location
- Lyon, France
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- 6 April 2013
For those who recently noticed that most of the NSL gathers are currently dead, less players than before, only one or two gathers per day if we're lucky, the NSL wants to keep this system alive, it contributes to grow the NS2 competitive community since the beginning of the (E)NSL. With the implementation of the new website & new features you found out, we decided to remove the NS1 Gathers, they were definitely forsaken so many months ago, and the idea was to bring more people to the NS2 Gathers.
That's why we need you, we'd like to receive many feedbacks to know what we could do to improve our Gathers, what do you want? How can we do to make them more active & more used? Your opinion is important for us, help us to make them better.
If, like Mega, you already gave your opinion somewhere, and think nobody in the staff heard you, please, write it here again, the purpose of this post is to gather various opinions.
We had the idea to change a tiny bit the current Gather system to make it closer to the US Reddit Pugs. What do you think about that? If you need more informations about this system, just ask us & we'll answer to you on this topic (for those who do not know the US Pugs).
Moadib is actually Gather Admin, but we would like to recruit one more active player to manage it, someone who usually plays Gathers, available if somebody gets any problem due to gather reasons/issues. Just contact me on Steam (same nickname) or PM on the website if you think you can do it.
Your help is crucial for us, feel free to say whatever you want here.
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Making gather and pug closer is a great idea, but this will work by removing pug or adding an "US Gather"?
As for me (and other players but i won't speak for them), i stopped gathers because of redondant sentry strat (cf Bubba), making gathers borring and useless. And since he is on every single gather and never change his strat/vision of the game ... well you get the point. Just trying to be honest here.
(ps: sorry in advance for my poor english))
Xeon
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- 908
- Location
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Joined
- 9 May 2010
People don't spam their friends lists enough.
Can you explain how the US pug system works?
http://www.youtube.com/user/swalken/videos
Div2orDisband
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- 46
- Location
- Bruges, Belgium
- Joined
- 6 April 2013
That system sounds inferior in all but the fact you don't have to do anything but jump into mumble to get involved. I guess the need to register a nsl account and log in might scare off some people who otherwise might have tried out the gather system?
We're grumpy
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- 452
- Location
- Lyon, France
- Joined
- 6 April 2013
The biggest difference is about Commanders role, as Cr4zy said, they decide to be Commander and then, pick their team. In the NSL Gathers, you vote for a Captain and he picks his team depending on who can Com, but Captain isn't necessarily Commander.
Maybe we can find another system, not sure which one though.
@Neoken, anyway, it's very rare to see new players or some pub players in a Gather, they have to create a new account for sure, but they know the skill level isn't really the same as on public servers.
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Xeon
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- 908
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- Copenhagen, Denmark
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- 9 May 2010
Yeah I agree I like the current system more then.
I think it would be great to have a button that says "Able to command" next to the "Join gather" button. Then have a special icon appear next to the names, to show the captains which players are able to command. You could also add several buttons, so you could have the lifeforms show as icons as well. You should be able to pick several classes and picking at least one class should be required to fully sign up. The buttons would obviously be a way to show your preference, not call dips. The captain still ultimately decides.
http://www.youtube.com/user/swalken/videos
Div2orDisband
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- 124
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- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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- 29 November 2012
Yeah the general gather system could be way better with something like swalks suggestions. Moving away from the mechanics of the system, we could have 1 or 2 nights a weeks set times for a regular recurrent gather- Wednesday and Sunday at say 8.30 cest. This could also be used to promote a one off rookie only night where 2 ensl assigned captains could command a team of nubs to show pub players the joy of organised competitive (and balanced) ns.
I was so impressed by TAW and the 24+ player turn out they have twice a week. Playing 2 internal scrims simultaneously was pretty cool to see in the current climate.
Xeon
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- 908
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- Copenhagen, Denmark
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- 9 May 2010
Also I noticed that it says there is a password enabled on the teamspeak. You should probably remove that(since there is no password) and then add some better information for newcomers. Something like; "When the gather is full, music will play. Vote for a captain to stop the music and then join the teamspeak. Advertise the gather link to your friends to help fill the gather Keep this page open until the gather is full and teams have been picked."
http://www.youtube.com/user/swalken/videos
- Posts
- 32
- Location
- Moldova (Republic of)
- Joined
- 9 January 2014
Another thing about reddit pugs is that they have a group in steam, and they make announcements there, so that every player in group can know that pug is gonna start soon, that is a good thing that i miss about gathers, you dont have to spam your friendlist to get a gather going, u just need to make an announcement in steam group.
pubstars
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- 225
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- Germany
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- 27 September 2009
just use the old ensl group whoever dosnt like this annoment spamm will leave the group or ignore it so the issue gets sorted out itself beside you allready have some audiance cause these gathers defintly need more people
Xeon
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- 908
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- Copenhagen, Denmark
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- 9 May 2010
Nice visualization Mega. I do however think that it should be required to pick at least one class, else some people won't bother doing it. Everyone's got one lifeform they can play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/swalken/videos
pubstars
- Posts
- 225
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- Germany
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- 27 September 2009
1) THE ICONS
Think about it you need 2 fades 2 lerks and 1 onos so chosing 2 icons like i did makes more sense and still shouldnt be to much spam.
(my cutouts had red background that i was not able yet to fix but normaly they dont then it looks a bit cleaner too)
(The Comm icons are self explaining but ok well the CC/Hive mix means you can comm bouth sides the hive only aliens the cc only marines so if you select a commicon or can comm bouth sides CC/Hive icon you can still select a 2nd icon a lifefom.)
2) THE CAPTAIN/COMM FREE CHOICE ISSUE
BTW on the NS1 Gathers(@done over a steamgroup) we even go a step further into the Free choice direction with:
Everyone joins the Server playing combat till having 12 when having 12 we changemap veil
now theres a question popup (amxx plugin) ingame (a choice):
Are you willing to Captain:
---------------------------------
1. Yes
2. No
Then theres a list top right:
Captainslist:
---------------
Mega
Eddy
Mayhem
then we chose 2 captains by asking over ingamevoicechat ingamechat and pick 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 like here and in the reddit pug
On the Reddit pug the commander promots himself to go Captain/Comm by moving into the Commander Corners.
On the Ns1 Gather over the Steamgroup the Captain promots himself to go Captain
and then in ingame chat we talk about who can play what also comm.
Long Story short:
The Captain/Commaner should be free choice luckly it didnt happen but he could be trolling or leaving if he/she dosnt like to be captain/comm and is forced then you need to ban about such stuff (that was not his choice).
And now is the Chance to change this to avoid these possible issues.
3) THE JOINTIME OR MERCLIST
A) The Jointime(@my screenshot) should help detecting dead gathers by normal non admin players so a admin can be msessaged and can kick gone people.
B) Or no Joinlist
and go for the merclist(@my 2ndScreenshot) at the end what would probly help filling gathers more often but might include more regathers.
(was not intended to have bouth system at the same time but to show of i did)
A) So The Jointime also could hold people back in actualy joining the gather cause they see so many people not being there for so long or waiting for ages allready but on the other hand its easy to sort out for admins that get messages about afks from players in the gather. (this clearly need encouraged gather players that act and not sit and surf the internet)
B) So the Merclist will keep these afks in but might result in more waiting time after picks are done cause possible afks and need of mercs for em.
but invinting people could then be done over the merclist you do a annocment "need 2 mercs for gather" @Steamgroup and wait @merclist.
then the Captain should be able to drag and drop or button select (like picking teams) to replace these afk players so they get exchanged from alien/marine to merclist and marked as afks @the merclist.
admins can go back and ask wtf happend the captain and the afk later on to do bans if nessesary.
(all in all if i think myself about idea B it might be more complicated but better and should result in more gather played)
4) WHAT HOLDS PUB PLAYERS BACK IN JOINING GATHERS
A) They have to Register an account
B) They have to google how to find out the Steamid of em
C) They have to wait long instead of quickly jumping into the game
D) They have to understand to keep the gather page open/leave install ts3 a lot of small issues
So basicly maninly A B and C is holding them back in actualy try gathers out.
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- 32
- Location
- Moldova (Republic of)
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- 9 January 2014
Also it would be nice to unite rpug mumble with european ts3, so players from both continets could chill in one voip server, its a good way to keep ns2 community united, also it would allow to fill gathers/pugs much faster.
Also I would like to speak about benefits/negatives of both nsl gathers and rpugs.
Benefits of rpugs:
1) Pug bar, where you can just chill and chat with other players.
2) They are filling faster, thanks for the announcements in steam group and also most of us players just chill in there.
3) Commanders pick teams, not best players, that makes it more balanced, and also you dont spend 10 minutes ingame, deciding who wants to command, an if no one is able to command in most of the cases game is ruined for one of the sides.
4) If teams are unbalanced teams easily can trade players.
5) Less afk players, because you stay in mumble, and you hear everything that's happening around, and if you are afk (muted in mumbe) when pugs starts and you can get moved to pug bar, to check if you are there, and if you are there you'll be notifed via mumble sound and you can just unmute urself and go back to rr. And even if you are somehow managed to go afk already ingame, you can also get replaced by someone who joined readyroom after the pug started, it takes few seconds.
6) People can speak to each other, while they are located in different rooms in mumble, also they can move people when they are in "commanders corner" room.
Negatives;
1) People leave game before gg is called, and join readyroom in mumble, and then even more people rush to ready room, and then starts the game : "Who was the last 7 in readyroom", that sometimes can force conflicts.
2) Very often when readyroom is full, there are no commanders, and people can wait for a very long time for 2 commanders, even for an hour or more
3) There is no such thing like mapvote, people either play what was chosen by admin, or they make up for 5 votes with 1min timeout between them, deciding what map they want to play, if admin is not present.
NSL gathers:
Benefits:
1) Mapvote and servervote, you can choose server and map that you want to play.
2) While there is 12 players gather starts, you dont have to wait extra time for commanders.
Negatives:
1) You always have to keep ur browser open, to get notified if gather starts.
2) Best players pick teams, which sometimes is not fair, because sometimes there are troll votes, where instead of 2 really good players people choose one prem div player as captain for team1, and some div3 player as captain for team2.
3) Often its a struggle to find a commander, and it can ruin a game. Sometime all players that can command appear to play in one team, and other team has no commanders.
pubstars
- Posts
- 225
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- Germany
- Joined
- 27 September 2009
the ensl gather had back in the days bazilians playing us playings showing by ect
cuase there where brazil and american servers voteable @serverlist
if you have that again problem is solved +having 2 system might be good cause of ts3 + mumble speak latency
one brit too many
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- 90
- Location
- London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Joined
- 13 February 2013
Swalk having to contact an admin just to fix teams is ridiculous, it is up to the players to sort the teams out themselves. Simply put, the biggest issue is commanders, most people don't want to do it and quite often you get people that are simply just not that good at it or want to do ridiculous strats.
The reddit pug way of organising these gathers is by far the best way that has been suggested so far. It alleviates a gather happening when no one in the team wants to command and at the same time people realise for a gather to start they will need commanders which encourages people to do it.
Aside from that the only issue is player skill and knowledge of the game. This puts some people off because it can be infuriating playing with people that do not understand the game too well and likewise I am sure it can be infuriating playing against players that are far better than you.
I will just say this, if people are willing to learn and put a small amount of time in each week in improving a certain aspect of their game then the overall playing experience for everyone will be better.
Don't be afraid to ask people that are better than you what you can do to improve. It is not always possible to reach your maximum potential as a player or team without a little help from others. Don't be so stubborn to think that you can solve every problem on your own :) There is no shame in asking for help, after all, 2 heads are better than 1.
Skill Issue
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- 57
- Location
- Canada
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- 27 December 2009
I think itd be neat if the gather system put the commander icon beside those who have the experience commanding, by looking at hive/ns2stats or whatever. Also it'd be nice to be able to pick your lifeform, or preferred life form, so it's easier for commanders to choose.
- Posts
- 43
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- Germany
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- 19 July 2013
If you are worried that it becomes to clustered with images you could use abrivations such as:
FA->Fade
LE->Lerk
O-> Onos
or Numbers:
1-> Fade
2-> Lerk
seperated by semicolons.
